CBS to Reboot ‘The Twilight Zone’ with Jordan Peele at the Helm

Many have fond memories of the classic show The Twilight Zone, which ran from 1959-1964. Over fifty years after its original run, CBS will be rebooting the series for the third time with Jordan Peele of the popular TV show Key and Peele and the film Get Out (2017) and Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions producing. Marco Ramirez of the Netflix Original show Sons of Anarchy is set to write scripts and serve as the showrunner for the reboot.

It’s rumored that The Twilight Zone reboot will only be available on CBS’s subscription service CBS All-Access. CBS had tried rebooting the television series in 2012 with a different team, but the project never went anywhere. The Twilight Zone was rebooted successfully in the early 2000s and eighties for a few seasons each, and Stephen Spielberg even made a movie based on the show.

It still remains firmly rooted in pop culture today, often referenced in shows like Futurama, The Simpsons, Family Guy, comic books like The Goon, and even at certain Disney parks, the Tower of Terror ride being, essentially, an homage to the show.

The Twilight Zone, no matter the series, often consisted of episodes with a sci-fi or fantasy bent, and the show has often been used to comment on current events and political climates. The show is noted for its surprising twist endings and the host of the original series, the always suave, always cool Rod Serling. It will be interesting to see if Peele–or anyone else–will be filling Serling’s shoes as an on-screen host.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Twilight Zone, you’re in luck: we recently ran an article on the original series, focusing on episodes with a horror bent, that are as good a place as any to start on. There are 146 other episodes available on DVD, Netflix, and Hulu. Because the show has such a legacy, it would be worth getting a feel for the original before checking out the latest reboot.